Mom & Dad

Our family wouldn't be complete without a discussion about Mom & Dad.  I know I have talked about both separately, but this is more about them together...two very different people who managed to overcome their differences to focus on the one thing that was most important to them both: raising a family with so much love and support, and occasional firmness, that they would always feel secure.

I suppose that priority might have been borne of their own individual growing-up experiences, dad a virtual orphan who was raised by an elderly great aunt and uncle (George and Mary Cook...the same ones who raised grandpa Byron when he was literally orphaned); and mom without a father from a very early age, and whose mother had to work very hard to put a roof over the heads of and food on the table for her own brood of six.

Dad grew up as a smallish kid who loved competition, and always went around with a sort of chip on his shoulder.  He was baptized as a child (the Cooks were religious folk) but was not active and didn't have much background in the church.  The one childhood experience he did mention once in a great while was being terrified by some rustling curtains while alone at a church building.  He loved sports of all kinds, and being outdoors, and like many men of that generation, was sort of a renaissance man...there were few practical skills he didn't possess.  He didn't go to college, but did graduate high school, something of an accomplishment for a young man in his situation.

Though Mom's dad was not very religious (rumor was he made his own beer, and maybe more serious stuff at times), her mother was.  The Jackman family was very spiritual and family oriented, and Gertrude had a temple recommend all the time I knew her...even though she drank a little tea.  She was kind and gentle, and that passed through to Mom, who was always the patient opposite of Dad's impatience, and short temper.  If you got in trouble, you better do it in the daytime when Dad was at work, and you hoped Mom would not follow through on her off-hand resolve to "tell your father when he comes home.

Even though we feared Dad's short temper, I don't remember him ever spanking me or otherwise punishing us physically (except the infamous boot situation I have mentioned in other writings:-)).  I do remember him gripping me by both my upper arms, and raising me to eye level, and giving me an angry look...that accounts for the fear, I guess.

But there was no inconsistency...they both came to any evening events I was in (plays, concerts, games, etc.).  Their discipline was absolutely in harmony...you better not be caught trying to play one against the other ("well mom said..." "is that so? well let ME go ask her..."well maybe that wasn't exactly what she said"...).

And they always praised even our best efforts, though sometimes they questioned, accurately,  whether something was our best effort.

But one thing that triggered this memory was a photo of my Dad and Mom together at a ward dinner.  They were not party animals while we were growing up, but right before my mission, and after until I got married, my Dad began a practice of taking my Mom to lunch...not every day, but several times a week.  He was retired, she was still working, and he would pick her up and take her to one of their favorite haunts...not really fancy places, but not fast food either.  He invited me to come along on a few occasions, and I just remember how my Mom glowed at being treated so specially. Dad would usually put on some nice clothes, and he would do the whole chair-door thing.  I think he was pleased that he was finally in a position to afford to do it, both in terms of time and money.

I am grateful that two such different and individual people were able to unite on all the important things...it gives me hope that we can do that in other settings as well.    

              

Jeff

As promised, if a few days late...we had a busy weekend.

Jeff's entry into our family circle represented the largest gap from a previous sibling...but he was not a surprise.  I remember Mom saying in later years that whenever our family gathered before Jeff was born, it felt like someone was missing.  When Jeff came, it felt complete.

Jeff was the one who most inherited Mom's "Indian in the woodpile" looks...in summers his tan was so dark.  One summer time when Jeanne and I were in our first student branch Mom, Dad, and Jeff came to attend our ward with us.  At the time, the Church had a program where disadvantaged Native American children, with their parents' approval, could live with LDS families off the reservation, where the opportunities for education and work would be  much greater.  It was called the "Lamanite Placement Program", and I knew several kids growing up who benefited from it.  Well, the next week several of our friends approached us to ask about the handsome young Native American whom my parents were boarding.  Jeanne and I got quite a laugh over that.

Jeff  was nine years younger than me, six younger than Dave, so the groups of kids we ran around with were a little too old for him, and there weren't many kids in our neighborhood his age.  We did have one family who occupied the house next to ours for a few years, the Englebretsens, who had two sons around Jeff's age: Shell, who was a little older, and Mark, who was a little younger. Jeff's easygoing friendliness made it easy for him to attract friends though, so there were often kids from school populating our house.  Later he would become close friends with Johnny Maestas, a full-blooded Native American from a few houses to the north whose father, a great man, became our Bishop while I was on my mission.  I wrote some time ago about an experience forever linking my father and Johnny (see April 13, 2016 post), and Bishop Maestas was a great friend to Dad.

Because he was nine years younger, our games with each other were a little different.  One of our favorites was "stairway basketball", where we set a plastic bucket at the top of the stairway, and one of us would take a Nerf ball, and from the bottom of the stairway try to get past the other enough to stuff it in the bucket...very physical, but lots of fun.

We also played a modified whiffle-ball  baseball where there were just three bases, home, 1st, and 2nd. If you hit the ball hard enough to make it around all three bases, well and good; but if you got stuck on 1st or 2nd, the pitcher-fielder would toss the ball a little bit in the air, enough to tempt you to try to advance, but not enough you actually could.  It required great skill and strategy, and Jeff beat me virtually every time.

The summer after I got back from my mission, Dave and I got the crazy idea we could coach a little league team.  Jeff's team was in need of a coach, so we volunteered.  I don't think we were the worst team in the city...we actually had some pretty talented players, Jeff among them...but I am pretty sure we had two of the most clueless coaches.  Fortunately kids are pretty forgiving...not so much their parents.

When he was older, Jeff became a great help to me in many ways.  When Jeanne and I moved from Virginia back to Provo for the summer, before determining where we would go to law school, we decided to do the move ourselves, for which we would be paid by the Army what they would have paid the movers.  Jeff agreed to come out and help me drive the full-sized Ryder moving van from Virginia to Utah...good thing, because I knew nothing about such things as backing up a tractor trailer,and he was quite comfortable with it.  

Later still, he would become my mentor as he became a Bishop before I did, and later became a counselor in a stake presidency before me...what an example.

How was I so lucky to have four such gifted, fun, and uplifting siblings??  

        

My Two Younger Brothers

My sisters were not the only ones who had a big influence on me...my brothers did as well.  While we were together for much of our growing-up, I will treat them a little more separately, as the experiences were very different for me.

Dave was born when I was three...almost literally.  I was born January 17th, 1953, Dave January 18th, 1956.  I do not remember life in the Lambson home when Dave was not in it.  I remember going to the hospital right after his birth...they did not accord visits to the likes of three-year-olds, so I waved at Mom through a window.  She held Dave up, and he was mostly yellow...the effects of a high bilirubin count I would later discover.  They called it "jaundiced".  Fortunately it was not fatal nor permanent, but it may have been a harbinger of the health issues Dave would have early on.

For much of his life as a baby and toddler Dave suffered from terrible earaches, with a side-effect doctors described as Bell's Palsy, which caused paralysis to half his little face (here is a link to a Mayo Clinic description if you are interested:  Mayo Clinic - Bell's Palsy    ).  I only vaguely remember the many nights my parents were up in the middle of the night trying to administer what comfort they could.  As a result, Dave wore a little hat with ear flaps whenever he went out, even in summer (I don't think they had come up with putting tubes in your ears by then).

That also might explain some of the crazy things he did as a pre-schooler, to wit: running down the hall, through the living room, and putting his head through the plate glass in the bottom panel of our outside door (Plexiglas not yet in vogue), and opening a cut on his forehead that took forever to stop bleeding; or the night (I admit complicity in this) Mom & Dad were absent,  and he and I were jumping up and down on our well-worn couch when he suddenly decided to alter his direction and jump in the middle of an inlaid glass coffee table nearby, breaking it neatly in half (fortunately the only casualty on this one was the coffee table).  

There was the time (he is captured on film on this one) he desecrated our birthday cake.  Because our birthdays were so close Mom would routinely bake one birthday cake for both of us.  They were always creative and amazing. This particular year she made a carousel, on a lazy-suzan so it could be turned, with a plastic doily canopy, and animal crackers to serve as the various animal rides.  Dave just couldn't resist.  He would go over, grab an animal cracker in each hand, bite the heads off, THEN REPLACE THEM ON THE CAKE!  He did this for several iterations.  Fortunately, Mom had extra cookies...

We did share in many games and escapades.  He was much more of a hunter than I was, but we both enjoyed the outings, and some of our hunting time overlapped in spite of our three-year age difference. Two stories worth noting, but one will suffice for this writing:

Dad used to pheasant hunt in some of the fields that were on the south and west sides of Orem, and Dave and I and would go along sometimes.  On this occasion Dave, who had an even bigger fascination with nature than I did, found an abandoned pheasant nest with a couple of unhatched eggs still in it...no telling how long it had been sitting there.  Against Dad's better judgment, he yielded to Dave's  pleas and let him keep the nest.  All was well until it was time to go home.  Dave had placed the nest in one of the hand-wells on the rear door, and as we prepared to leave he inadvertently leaned his elbow into the well.  The result was the most horrible, pervasive, consuming stench I have ever experienced.  Of course the eggs were rotten, and this went beyond any rotten egg smell.  We all had to flee the car and its immediate atmosphere.  It wasn't until some time later the stench had subsided to the point we were able to return to the car so Dad (of course) could clean out the mess and we could return home (this was not Dave's last encounter with the various stenches of nature 😃)

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Dave was always a dead on voice imitator (probably where Steve gets it) and could crack us up with his renditions of Popeye, while doing a little sailor jig.  While I was on a mission, he sent me a cassette tape (the Marco Polo of the time) with one 60 minute side completely filled with a western tale about a cattle drive (we've got to get these cattle to Belle Fourche before sundown!) where he imitated, in turn, an old-timer (the narrator), John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Clint Eastwood, Walter Brennan, and Ken Curtis (Festus on Gun Smoke).  I played it for all my companions, and it never failed to have them in stitches.

Our romantic paths crossed only once.  Right after I returned from my mission to the mid-west, we decided to do a "creative" double-date (trendy at the time), where the object of our affection would not initially know who the suitor was.  This would be accomplished by an arranged "kidnapping", where I would pick up his date, he would pick up mine, and then blindfold them until they were delivered to the beginning point of the date.  It was every bit as ridiculous as it sounds (we were not very creative, as it turns out), and I am not sure either of us went on a date with either of those two again.

So many memories, so little time...they will have to wait.

Next time: Jeff!        

                     

My Two Sisters

Growing up with two older sisters was amazing experience (sorry, Steve Jr., I can't speak to the amazing experience growing up with four older sisters...as well as two younger).  Michelle and Maurine never ceased to amaze me, and they still do.

I don't remember much of them in Spanish Fork, except the already recounted story of making me terrified of EEEEEEEEEE's. 

In Orem they seemed to make friends quickly.  It didn't hurt that they had two of the coolest nicknames.  Michelle was "Micky", and Maurine was simply her first name "Vicky".  So together they were Micky and Vicky...or the other way around.

They were both good athletes.  I remember a story about Maurine...I can't recall if this was at school or in our neighborhood...probably both.  The boys had gathered to choose up sides for football, and of course, she was right there. At first they didn't even want her to play, but she wouldn't go away, so someone finally chose her...last.  Of course they wouldn't throw the ball to her, so she had to show her skill on defense by deftly stepping in front of an intended receiver, snatching the ball, and going the distance for a touchdown.  After that they thought "hmmm...maybe she can catch", and soon found she was the fastest and most reliable pass-catcher on the team.  There were no more problems with being chosen last after that.

Both of them were key cogs on our very competitive 24th Ward women's softball team.  In those days, teams were composed of women of all ages, though most of them were in the teen-young adult categories.  This was fast-pitch softball, and they had a good one in Lynette Downs.  It was so fun to go watch them play...I remember travelling to Lindon, Pleasant Grove, and American Fork to watch them. They had the best team in our Stake, and one of the best in the Region.  They put a lot of men's teams to shame.

Both were competitive tennis players, and did very well.  Maurine was a little more defiant, so when Dad would practice with her, and lose patience, and drill balls right at her, her attitude was to get good enough to drill him back. I am sure that wasn't the only factor, but somewhere along the way she got good enough to compete in tournaments, and win most of them.  She had a bunch of trophies.   One year she went to Liberty Park in Salt Lake City and won the State Championship!  All of us bragged on that!  She also won a city-wide hopscotch tournament and was the best jacks and marbles player, boy or girl, in her grade  

They were both smart, good students, well-liked by all their teachers...which got me in trouble in 5th grade. I had the same teacher that both of them had, Mr. Sargent, a great teacher who became our principal the following year.  At any rate, during our lunch break I was playing a sort of modified soccer with a bunch of other 5th- grade boys, and I, among others, could be heard using "colorful metaphors" on occasion.  I was in rare form that day, as I was using my full palette up and down the field.  I guess Mr. Sargent had been watching us, and called me over.  He gave me a very stern lecture, some of which was how he had both  my sisters as students and never heard such language from them.  I respected Mr. Sargent a great deal, and his chastisement stung.  I won't say I never let a word slip again, but I was much more circumspect in my public display.

Also, though they were often Dave's and my tormentors at home, they were also our staunch defenders.  I remember an occasion when I was probably 6 or 7 years old, trying to cross the canal to go over the wooden bridge on the way to the school to play one weekend (we often went to the school's playground or ball fields in off hours), an older kid wouldn't let me pass.  His "ticket" was to punch me in the stomach, the effect of which was to knock the wind out of me.  He laughingly left me out of breath and in tears.  I, of course, reported this at home. Michelle asked me what the kid looked like.  I described him as best I could, and 'Shell said she knew exactly who I was talking about... a kid named David Mackey.  She said not to worry, that she would take care of it. I don't know what she did, and it was only a few years later I found out who David Mackey was...and he was not the one who punched my ticket that day...but he never did give me any trouble, perhaps an example of preventive retribution.

Maurine was always the one who trained us in special skills.  She taught us how to belch entire sentences.  She taught me how to whistle through my hands.  She could make impressive fart sounds by cupping air in her hand under her armpit, then bringing her arm down swiftly...a skill I sadly never mastered.  She also knew all my tickle spots, and at one point had me where she didn't even need to touch me...she just came near and started flexing her fingers, and I would become weak with laughter.

I know this is lengthy, but one more story.  When I was in the summer between my sophomore and junior years, I got a little work doing small jobs for an apartment owner in Provo.  I earned enough money to by my first two record albums...one was "Goin' Out of My Head" by the Lettermen; the other was a patriotic album by the Tabernacle Choir.  I was listening to that album on a 4th of July morning when Michelle was down visiting, and I was in the living room alone, and one of the songs touched me in a special way, and I was standing there alone with tears streaming down my cheeks.  Michelle came in the room to get me for something and saw me there.  She looked me in the eyes, then stepped over and embraced me in a tight hug as we both shed grateful tears together, and she whispered in my ear how proud she was to have me for a brother.

I love my sisters so much, and their lives and examples were and are a large part in helping me to choose and stay on the path I have followed.